As usual, the fabled "playboy Kirk" is completely missing in action. That's not what's unusual about this very unusual episode. What's really unusual is there is basically nothing specifically slashy in it, at all. Kirk doesn't seem Gay at all, and neither does Spock.
Kirk does have lots of clutch-time with the lady of the hour, but it's not really his free and fully self-possessed decision - as usual.
As usual, Kirk does betray some strong hints of a kinky side. As usual, Kirk shows ZERO talent for seducing ladies. Heck no! To the contrary, he seems perfectly inept at managing this episode's Gal Du Jour, and he certainly does not get laid, despite strong encouragement from the woman, as I shall explain:
The Enterprise is on a top secret mission to the Tellun star system. Kirk and crew stopped first to take aboard Petri, the very fruity green ambassador from Troyius (the outer planet). Then they transport him to Elaas (the inner planet), where they are next scheduled to pick up a distinguished Elaasian passenger and party for him to meet - who then are all to be taken redundantly back to Troyius... it's all very complicated.
In the lift, Scotty wonders aloud why all the secrecy is necessary. Spock explains that this star system is in a disputed border area. Although Elaas and Troyius are both apparently "under Federation protection" (whatever THAT means), Klingons also claim jurisdiction here.
[NOTE: Here comes trouble.]
Spock adds that Elaasian men tend to be vicious and arrogant.
[NOTE: Here comes trouble.]
McCoy adds that Elaasian women are supposed to have some mystical power that drives men wild.
[NOTE: Here comes trouble.]
Once in orbit around Elaas, three Elaasian guards beam aboard.
[NOTE: Holy cow, we thought the Troyian was fruity, but the Elaasian men surpass him by a country mile. For one thing, they wear no pants.]
The Elaasians check to see that all is secure, and then they kneel, asking everybody else to kneel, too. Then the haughty Dohlman of Elaas beams aboard.
The Dohlman (that's her title: we never really get her name) is a truly outstanding looking young woman with a sexy body, a pretty face, and an exotic, elaborate headful of shiny black braids.
Kirk surprises us by deciding after all to kneel like the ambassador does, after he sees her.
[NOTE: He doesn't do it impulsively. He first looks at Spock, and shrugs, and nods a little, and only after it's obvious that Spock doesn't mind, he kneels - and Spock, Scott and McCoy also follow suit. Clearly, Kirk does not do this because he is overwhelmed with admiration for the woman, but because it's a courtesy.]
Well, she's IS a doll to look at, but her nasty personality doesn't match her pleasing appearance. Instead of being charmed by the extraordinary courtesy she has been shown, she immediately starts complaining and barking orders.
She orders Kirk to show her to her quarters. Kirk, initially showing no special eagerness to play Dohlman's pet, tells her that Spock will show her the way.
[NOTE: this is Kirk's little way of showing her that he's not going to let her boss him around.]
When he turns to leave, she screeches that he has not been dismissed.
[NOTE: Check out Kirk's reaction to this demand...]
Kirk, strangely, seems amused. He turns back and humors her a little, asking for permission to be dismissed. Once she grants permission, he softly and sweetly thanks her.
[NOTE: OK, maybe he would let her boss him around. Sort of sending a mixed message there, aren't you, Jimmy-boy? The truth is, it IS kind of a turn on for Jim when girls get bossy with him. He really kind of liked it when Shana bossed him around and trained him to be a good slave in Gamesters, for example.]
Petri explains to Kirk that "Elaan" (obviously another title, but it passes for her name) is to be forced into a marriage with the ruler of Troyius, in order to prevent war. Petri has been ordered to teach Elaan some manners first, and toward that end he asks Kirk to take them back to Troyius very slowly, because he's sure that process will take some time.
Next thing you know we're on the bridge, and Spock is telling Kirk that Elaan hates her room. Uhura is a little pissed to hear this, since she gave up her own cabin for the Dohlman to use. Kirk goes to try to talk some sense into the woman.
Cut to Uhura's sumptuous, pillow-padded quarters, where Elaan is throwing a big fit and attacking Petri. He tries to explain how precious and rare the gifts are, but she's not having it. She doesn't like him, or his gifts, or the horse he rode in on. She hates all Troyians, she hates her room, she hates Kirk, and, basically, she hates everything.
[Special NOTE: Petri shows her the necklace that she later wears that turns out to be so important. What's weird is she rejects it, but later opts to wear it - which *doesn't* makes sense because she says (a) she doesn't want it, and (b) they are only common stones.]
Elaan terrifies everybody else away, but Kirk stays to hang out a little longer, apparently intrigued by this big brat and her violent misbehavior.
[NOTE: Not surprising. Kirk's always magnetically attracted to people who seem likely to hurt him.]
"Your glory doesn't seem to be responding to instruction." Kirk mildly observes, as if he thinks she's kind of cute.
Elaan, sensing that Kirk is sympathetic, pours her heart out to him about her outrage about the indignities she is being forced to endure.
[NOTE: Hey, it's not like she doesn't have good reason to be upset. She's being shipped off to a forced marriage to an enemy whom she detests against her will. If you were in her place, you wouldn't like it either.]
Kirk tries to reason with her, but she's not having it, so he leaves..._without_ her permission, this time.
Kirk advises the very upset ambassador to try a different approach.
"She respects strength" Kirk tells him. "Go in strong!"
[NOTE: Actually, we have no reason to believe that she does respect strength. I have no idea why Kirk says that.]
This turns out to be the exact wrong thing to do. When Petri tries following Kirk's advice, Elaan stabs Petri with a knife.
[NOTE: I told you trouble was coming. Well, it has arrived.]
Meanwhile, Spock detects a "ghost" paralleling the Enterprise's course. After fading in and out of sensor range, the "ghost" reveals itself to be a Klingon warship.
[NOTE: I told you trouble was coming. Well, it has arrived.]
While visiting the wounded ambassador in sickbay, Kirk learns from Uhura that the Federation high commissioner sent a scrambled, coded, top-secret message to the Enterprise that he plans to attend the wedding, personally.
[NOTE: I told you trouble was coming. Well, it has arrived.]
Out of Kirk's hearing, Petri also explains to McCoy and Chapel that the tears of Elaasian women can biochemically enslave the heart of any man.
Since Petri is out of commission, and since the mission seems so important, Kirk decides to take personal responsibility for teaching Elaan some manners.
[NOTE: Uh oh, here comes *more* trouble. Kirk is not exactly in all ways a perfectly polished gentleman. We are talking about a guy who drinks from the bottle, sleeps with his clothes on, and who would rather yank someone out of his way than ask them to step aside. Kirk's a barely civilized country bumpkin, himself...as he soon proves.]
[NOTE: Brace yourself to observe Kirk's famous "skill with women" in full flower.]
Kirk is a reasonable guy, so he first tries reasoning with her. "You Elaasians pride yourselves on being a warrior people - you must understand discipline...", Kirk says to Elaan. "...to be able to give and take orders. Now, *my* orders are to take you to Troyius to be married, and to see that you learn Troyian customs."
She tries reasoning back. "I despise Troyians", she explains. "Any contact with them makes me feel soiled."
"It's been my experience that the prejudices people feel about each other disappear when they get to know each other", Kirk replies.
"Not in my experience" she rejoins.
"Well, we're still faced with the same problem", Kirk continues. "Your indoctrination into Troyian customs and manners."
"And how do we solve that problem?" she asks, humoring him.
"By..." ::gulp:: "...giving you a new teacher."
She laughs, "Tell me what can *you* teach me?"
[NOTE: Up to this point, Kirk's not doing too badly. She's talking with him, she's listening to him, she not requiring him to kneel in her presence. Seriously, up to this point it actually looks like it might work. But Kirk blows it.]
Jim explodes. "Some table manners, for one thing!" he blurts. Then he foolishly starts mocking her. "This is a plate: it contains food! THIS is a KNIFE: it cuts the food! THIS is a GLASS...!"
[NOTE: which probably sums up all Jim can teach her about table manners.]
"LEAVE ME!" she quite naturally demands.
Kirk naturally refuses, preferring instead to piss her off some more by telling her what he really thinks of her, which is 100% JUST LIKE HIM.
[NOTE: I have told you before in detail the many ways in which Kirk really seems to be asking for people to hurt him. Weeeeelllll.... it looks to me like he's doing it again. This woman has already proven she's deadly dangerous, and Kirk DID just hand her ANOTHER KNIFE... now he is deliberately trying to piss her off, as if he's daring her to pick on somebody HIS SIZE.]
"Nobody speaks to me that way!" she cries. She's insulted.
[NOTE: Wouldn't you be?]
"Nobody's TOLD you that you are an uncivilized SAVAGE, a vicious CHILD in a woman's body..." Kirk approaches her. "..An arrogant MONSTER..!"
Outraged *and* threatened by his insulting and aggressive manner, she naturally slaps him. He, incredibly, slaps her back.
[NOTE: Gee, I don't know, Jim, is this really smart? It sure looks like you are inviting her to summon her three big personal guards for a little game of Kick-The-Captain]
Incredibly, the slap doesn't faze her.
Well, Kirk decides that he can't get through to the bitch, so he starts to walk out, but when she naturally throws the knife at him he realizes that he did succeed at getting under her skin after all. He turns and smiles at her.
"Tomorrow's lesson will be on courtesy", He blandly informs her.
[NOTE: He doesn't specify who'll be playing teacher on that occasion. He leaves that question open. To me, it looks like he needs a teacher more than she does. For all we know, he feels the same way.]
[NOTE: Boy, that Kirk. Some smoothie with the women, huh? Yeah, yeah, smooth as gravel.]
Next, we see Kriton messing around in the engine room. He booby-traps the warp engines, and kills an engineer who sees and tries to question him.
Kirk tries to visit Elaan but her guards refuse to let him pass. They get upset with Kirk when Kirk becomes insistent. Kirk shoves, they shove back, and just as it looks like they are going to shoot Kirk, the guards get shot...by Spock!
[NOTE: What!? What was HE doing there?]
Now Kirk walks in where he bloody well knows that he is unwelcome, and when Elaan naturally tries to defend herself with GUESS WHAT a knife, Kirk wrestles her down.
"You dare touch a member of the royal family!?" she cries.
"Only in self-defense." Kirk replies, wresting the knife from her hand, and tossing it away.
[NOTE: Now see here! She was the one who was defending herself!]
Kirk asks, "Now, are you going to behave or not?"
"The penalty is death for what you are doing!" she tells him, since in her view, HE is the one who is out of line.
"We're not on Elaas, we are on MY STARSHIP. I command here!" he very diplomatically and reasonably explains, while holding her tightly by the wrist.
[NOTE: Way to go, Jim, that's definitely the way to win over a wild filly like her. NOT.]
She manages to wriggle away from him, and runs off to lock herself in the bathroom.
She quite understandably tells him (through the door) to never touch her again.
[NOTE: Damn it, he's been warned! Her message to him couldn't be clearer. She's been solidly consistent about telling him repeatedly to back off and to totally fuck off.]
He tells her (through the door) that he'll never touch her again except to spank her.
[NOTE: More threats? Gee, Jim, I don't know... I'm starting to think that the one who really needs a spanking is you. Knowing you, you'd probably agree.]
"I will not be soiled by any further contact with you!" she wisely informs him.
Kirk gives up. He tells her he's going to send in Mr. Spock or Dr. McCoy to work with her.
Suddenly, out of the blue, and for no obvious reason, Elaan suddenly comes out of the bathroom and tells Kirk that she wants him to teach her how to make people like her.
[NOTE: What the fuck? What reason does she have to think that he could teach her anything about THAT?]
"I don't want everybody to hate me", she whimpers.
Kirk softens. Aww. Now he's sorry. He wasn't trying to upset her.
[NOTE: Wasn't he? If this isn't the effect he wanted, then what the hell WAS he going for? Weeeelllll...]
[NOTE: Here comes trouble.]
He sees her tears and touches her face...and she lets him...
[NOTE: I told you trouble was coming. Well, it has arrived.]
Kirk is instantly effected by the magical tears, and he suddenly sees Elaan completely differently. She pouts, he leans in, they kiss.
"Captain..." she smiles, "That ancient Earth custom called spanking...what is it?"
"It's um... it's uh...we'll talk about that later!"
They kiss some more.
[NOTE: See? Trouble.]
Just then, Kirk is informed that there is skullduggery afoot. He alerts security, tells all hands to go to alert status, and beats a path out of there without even saying goodbye.
[NOTE: Drug or no drug, girl or no girl, spanking or no spanking, he's still the ding-dong Captain, and he still acts like it.]
Kriton transmitted a signal to the Klingon ship using a Klingon communicator, before he was caught. Before Spock can use the Vulcan mind meld on him, he uses a hidden weapon to commit suicide.
Moments later, Elaan explains to Kirk that Elaasian "guard" Kriton was really a nobleman who was in love with her. He didn't want to give up Elaan to the Troyian leader, and since the Federation obviously wouldn't help him, he apparently decided to join forces with the Klingons.
"But why speak of unimportant matters..."
[NOTE: speaking of the man who just sacrificed his life out of love for her]
"...When we can speak about us?" Elaan caresses Kirk.
Kirk shoves her caressing hand away. Drug or no drug, girl or no girl, spanking or no spanking, this is no time for foolin' around, ding-dong it!
[NOTE: Especially not with the likes of her.]
[NOTE: guess those tears ain't all they're cracked up to be, or Kirk's horndog reputation isn't as well founded on fact as some people wish it was, OR BOTH.]
"I have a plan..." she wheedles. "With this ship, we could obliterate Troyius! Then there would be no need for the marriage! "
[NOTE: Behold her real reason for wanting to make Kirk her slave.]
"In gratitude", she continues, "...my people would give you the complete rule of this system."
[NOTE: Suuuurrre they would.]
"What kind of a mind could think of such a thing?" Kirk responds, horrified.
[NOTE: Yeah. He didn't become a slave just to become a ruler. Don't be silly.]
Then, they kiss.
[NOTE: Oh, Brother! Kiss or no kiss, spanking or no spanking, I hope it's plain enough that Kirk is a long way away from being persuaded by this harpy.]
The doorbell rings.
"Captain?"
It's Spock.
[NOTE: Isn't it great the way Spock is always RIGHT THERE when Kirk needs him?]
"You can not resist my love, my love." She redundantly asserts. They redundantly kiss some more.
The doorbell redundantly rings again.
"CAPTAIN!?"
It's STILL SPOCK.
The door opens. There stands McCoy and Spock. They keep standing there, and politely wait as Kirk pries himself out of Elaan's clutches.
"May we see you a moment?" Spock dryly asks. What he means is, "May we see you someplace FAR AWAY FROM THAT TREACHEROUS BITCH, RIGHT NOW?"
Once out in the hall, McCoy asks if her tears touched Kirk, ever.
They can tell from Jim's stricken expression what the answer is.
"Oh, we're in trouble." McCoy pronounces.
[NOTE: That's what *I* have been redundantly telling you.]
McCoy tells Kirk about the tears, and Kirk quite sensibly asks for an antidote.
The Klingon ship suddenly approaches at warp speed. Kirk announces battle stations, and rushes to the bridge. Luckily, just before Kirk orders Sulu to maneuver, Scotty warns that the matter-antimatter pods are rigged to explode the second the Enterprise goes to warp speed.
The Klingon ship streaks by the Enterprise without firing, presumably trying to provoke Enterprise to go to light speed, and blow itself up.
Spock sees Elaan hanging around on the bridge, questions her need to be there, and Kirk agrees that it would be better for her to leave. Kirk gives Spock the conn, and escorts Elaan to sickbay.
On the way, she asks Kirk if he'd really rather see her wearing her wedding dress for another man.
"Yes, Elaan", he answers.
[NOTE: I'm not kidding. That's his answer.]
Blah, blah, blah, Scott finds that the dilithium crystals have been completely fused, and that power for the warp drive and phasers is therefore not available. The Klingons demand that the Enterprise prepare to be boarded or destroyed. When Kirk does not agree, the Klingons attack.
Spock has been wondering why the Klingons are interested in Elaas in the first place, and the reason becomes obvious when Elaan comes to the bridge wearing the necklace which turns out to be made of dilithium crystals. Scotty is able to use those crystals.
Kirk orders Chekov to use photon torpedoes on the Klingon ship on its next pass, and they succeed in damaging the Klingon ship, which ends the attack.
Then Kirk and Elaan say goodbye to each other. Kirk did manage to teach her something after all: he taught her to do whatever she had to, in the name of her duty.
[NOTE: Which is really the only thing he knows much about.]
"I think I found an antidote!" McCoy crows at the end.
"The Captain has already found his own antidote." Spock intones. "The Enterprise infected the Captain long before the Dohlman did."
The breakdown? Kirk proves that he is easily able to resist the effects of the Dohlman's tears even without McCoy's antidote, simply by focusing on his duty. BTW, he never boinks her, because they never had time. Besides, as Kirk clearly stated in more ways than one, the bitch was not his type of gal.
[Special NOTE: Don't say the Enterprise is his type of gal, because that is patently ridiculous. Kirk is not in love with the starship, any more than he was in love with Elaan. According to Spock, Kirk was "infected" by both.]
[Extra special BONUS NOTE: McCoy says, "I guess there's no antidote for the Enterprise!" And Spock says, "In this particular instance, I agree with you." Well, we all know of an instance where Kirk proved the cure for his Enterprise infection was his all-consuming love for Spock - as we saw in ST3.]
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